The Boston Bruins knew Tuukka Rask’s 1-2 start to the season was an aberration. Since his debacle at home against the Washington Capitals where Rask let in four goals on 21 shots, he has been stellar compiling a 6-2 record winning three games in a row and five of his last six.

Most recently, last year’s Vezina trophy winner stopped 24 of 26 shots thrown on him by the Edmonton Oilers in a 5-2 victory Thursday night at TD Garden.

With much of the Black and Gold’s defense on the mend, the young defensemen are stepping up in a big way. Since Zdeno Chara has been injured, the Bruins hold a 5-1-0 record and while the young blue liners open eyes, Rask has been the constant between the pipes when his team needs it most.

“We have found ways to win and it hasn’t been pretty always, but we’ve stuck with it,” Rask said. “We’ve played a couple of solid sixty minute games. We knew when he (Chara) went down that we really needed to tighten up our defense and really pay attention to that. I think the past six, seven games, whatever, we’ve really done that and gone the right direction. So, we have to keep doing that, and whenever he comes back we can’t change a thing.”

Since the Bruins meltdown against the Wild in the third period a week ago, Rask has saved 74 of 79 shots for three straight victories. He now ranks fourth in the National Hockey League in wins with seven. His save percentage is still a pedestrian .907, but that will certainly rise at the clip he is on.

Rask knew if the team was to weather the storm with injuries to key players, it would start with him between the pipes and his teammates in front of him.

“We’re a tight group of guys,” Rask said after his 24 save performance against the Oilers Thursday night. “Injuries happen and we know that it doesn’t matter who goes down, we still have to play with each other and for each other. That’s really come to play even more now when you lose a captain. So it’s nothing more than just battling hard and protecting your net and starting from the defense. We really paid attention to that.”

While many signs pointed to Niklas Svedberg getting the start tonight against a bad Oilers team, Rask was in there again for his third straight start and he remained solid for the Black and Gold.

Tuesday night, Rask made 18 saves on 19 shots against Shawn Thornton and the Florida Panthers in the overtime victory and gave a lot of credit to his defense for blocking shots and playing tight.

“Today I liked it because we didn’t give up too many chances,” Rask said after his team’s victory Tuesday night. “We didn’t create a lot, but we still played a tight defense for the most part. We blocked a lot of shots and even though the breakout wasn’t as clean as we wanted, we stuck with it and went on as five man units and at the end of the day we won. Those are really good things to see.”

Things are starting to fall into place for Rask and the B’s without some of their key contributors. They are now winners of four straight and now own a 9-6-0 record. More success lies ahead as the B’s will get some reinforcements back in the near future.

“There’s still a lot of work to do, but I think we’re going in the right direction and once we get the full team going, everybody back, where we keep taking those steps forward,” Rask said. “It’s going to pay off in the end and that’s what we were hoping for.”